Rating: 
Summary: Not all there
Review: I was thinking that this book would be one about "flyboys" or the american aviators in the pacific. Well not quite, as one reviewer already listed it is much more of a history lesson and in my humble opinion a very skewed one at that. It is somehwat apparent that author Bradley has a vendictive side against the U.S. and it's government. Obviously the U.S. has made many mistakes through it's history but to compare us with the ruthlessness of the Japanese in WWII is absloutely ridiculous. Bradley has selected only certain parts of our history to show how we are comparable to the Japanese and flat out states that we set the example for the Japanese and their expansion into Asia. It's as if Mr. Bradley feels we can only blame ourselves for the pacific war as we started the process many years back when Admiral Perry sailed into Tokyo. See for yourself I guess. The interviews and true facts were very interesting but you will tire of the words spirit warriors, flyboys and many many Japanese phrases that exist on every single page over and over. Best of luck and go to the library - Sorry Amazon.com
Rating: 
Summary: A powerful story - told in with passion with a broad context
Review: I learned about this book by hearing the author speak on about it on a radio show and the story of the boys lost on Chichi Jima seemed sad and yet interesting. When I first started reading the book and the author was talking about the peaceful Japanese and the Imperialist Europeans and the American genocide of the Native Americans, I became quite worried about where the book was going. But I stuck with it because I wanted to find out about those airmen.I am glad that I did read it all the way through. This is a terrific book! Yes, there is a lot of material not directly related to the story of those airmen on Chichi Jima, but the author is doing his best to provide a good context for this effort within the broader Pacific War Effort. The author writes with so much passion, so much caring that the story became personal for me as well. I don't think you have to agree with very many of his judgments to find that he has a big heart that is able to face the real pain involved in war for all participants. It is not fair to say that he is letting the Japanese off the hook. Instead, he is very clear in his anger and disgust for the Spirit Warrior ethos and his view that they were betrayers of the true Japanese traditions. But he is clear that once America was at war it had no course but to finish it. Given the realities that an invasion of the Japanese Homeland would involve, he also doesn't question too deeply the total war we waged. However, he doesn't shy away from the horror and human cost it involved and he is correct, I believe. He is also correct to point out that people who question what we did there tend to not know the true history, but that does not diminish the horrors involved in real war. Mr. Bradley also points out the firebombing killed more than the atomic bombs and that Japanese swords killed more than the firebombing. I am grateful for the portraits Mr. Bradley paints of these boys serving their country and the way their lives were consumed in the war. I am also grateful for the way he follows up with the stories of the costs to the families of these soldiers. His stories of the fate of the Japanese soldiers who served on Chichi Jima are also touching. And while I won't reveal the last line of the book, I will tell you that it just stopped me in my tracks. It is an incredibly powerful statement of true spiritual reconciliation. Thanks for such a personal and well written book. There are quite a few photographs that really add to the telling of the story. But beware, some of them a very shocking. There is also an index, good source notes, and a fine bibliography for further reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Spirit warriors and spirited flyboys make battle
Review: This moving history of the men who made war with Japan in 1944-45 is a natural sequel to "Flags of our father" and rests well in the genre shared by "Ghost soldiers" and "The Bedford Boys". The story is compelling and seemingly complete, thorough; Bradley offers a lot of history and context, compassion and forgiveness as well. It is also a tale of mind-numbing sadness with a few glimpses of heroism, courage and charity. Many of those who volunteered heroically to fight after Pearl Harbor paid a dreadful price. In one respect, "Flyboys" is the story of six young men paying that price - some of them boys, really - who fought and died terrible deaths on and around a tiny scrap of rock located in the remote Pacific, an island strategic in importance to winning the war despite its tiny footprint. In a larger sense, it is about the air war in the Pacific, especially in the last year of the war with Japan. It is also a source of perspective, offering sobering glimpses of man's inhumanity to man, be he oriental or occidental. Bradley describes the evolution of Japan that led it to Pearl Harbor in the first third of the book. The middle third generally describes the role of American air power in this theater and provides brief, faded glimpses of the focal characters that cast their lot in small airplanes and realized their horrific fates on the tiny island of Chici Jima. The pivotal point for the book is the deaths of the six. Months of training ended with a few well-placed antiaircraft shells. And crashing was the least of their problems. The slaughtered men's families were long spared the details and, reading this, you are grateful for ignorance. Yet the story grows more unrelenting, with the March 9-10, 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo. The hundreds of thousands of Japanese who died from starvation, disease, and their own self-inflicted discipline of death with honor and pride greatly outnumbered those fought in traditional combat. Initials thoughts of Japan as "pure evil" - by the author as well as the reader -- give way to a more balanced perspective. Bradley does a nice job of showing that war crimes, hatred and inhumane treatment are acts that are usually decried, but they often come back as a form of justifiable revenge, the cost and inevitable consequence of war. Readers searching for a story of black and white, good and bad, are not going to find it here and that will leave some readers not only disappointed, but angry and incredulous. I came away from this book quite depressed. I want to believe that some of the more outrageous acts of barbarism are exaggerated, misreported or only imagined. And it makes me all the more grateful for the peace that was won at such a high cost and for those who made the greatest sacrifices to secure the victory at sea.
Rating:
Summary: bummer
Review: What a shame that Bradley uses his new fame and this platform to give us all a lecture from the "Book of Agenda-Based Liberalism". Living in Seattle, one cannot shield oneself from the unsolicited opinions of the Left, but in defense of my city, I have never heard anyone attempt to blame Japanese imperialism on the behavior of the United States...Wow. How sad that a fascinating story is politicized in this way. And like so many authors on a mission, Bradley's "facts" are so distorted, one wonders how his editor let him get away with it. The most egregious example is the absurd statement that "...Hitler and Tojo combined...killed about the same per month [during WWII]--7,000--as the American 'civilizers' did in the Phillipines". Shame on you, Bradley. I guess the 6 million in concentration camps would have messed up your math. When one reads something like that, it is clear that the "truth" was never part of the author's intention. The entire skewed, revisionist, body of work becomes suspect. I notice that more educated and informed reviewers than myself have done well to point out other "areas of concern". Why is this necessary?
Rating: 
Summary: Very poor work
Review: Just too many errors. Do not waste your time or money.
Rating:
Summary: Skewed History
Review: Flyboys is skewed. Bradley starts with a non-objective, skewed view of war history (Japanese and American), collects and interprets facts to support his skewed view, and then writes a skewed book. This book is a disappointing lecture by a non-historian who proves he has no credentials or impartiality as an historian.
Rating:
Summary: All Over The Map
Review: I was excited to read this book because I had read the authors first book and found it very enjoyable. I finished the book, but my experience this time was not as positive. I thought the book was going to be about US pilots that were shot down during one battle in the Pacific war, at least that is what the dust jacket lead me to believe the book was going to be about. What I found was that the author really gave the reader a spotty history of Japan war crimes, US POW's in Japan and a jumpy history of the US air war. I also found the bits on George W H Bush to be so light that it was obvious the author included it as a way to increase word of mouth for the book. One last critical comment, the author left no question as to his politics about warfare and at times it got in the way of the story. I am reading the book to discover something about history, not to learn the authors' political leanings. With all these negative comments out of the way I must admit that I enjoyed a large amount of the book. Despite the shortcomings I found, I just could not put the book down. The start of the book was a bit slow with its history of Japan, but once the book got into World War 2 it got interesting. The details on both the way Japan treated American POW's and the way the bombing campaign took place were both very eye-opening. The cruelty of war never ceases to amaze me, how people can treat other humans this way is really sad. The book gives the reader an idea of the life, however short it was, of an American POW and the down right sick way they were treated. Overall the book was mixed for me, the writing was good, it brought out interesting facts, but it was too jumpy and opinionated for a high mark.
Rating:
Summary: I was one of those flyboys.
Review: The events of 18 February 1945 bring back sad memories for me. I participated in the strike on Chichi Jima as a combat air crewman on a TBM Avenger piloted By Ens Jack Keinath with turret gunner Ed Nowak. I saw the plane of Ens Hall and his crew heading for a water landing due to antiaircraft damage. I transmitted a mayday in hopes that a submarine rescue could be made. Only after reading Flyboys did I learn the ultimate fate of Ens Hall, Mershon arm3/c,and Frazier aom/2/c. The news was very distressing to say the least. I found the book very accurate and informative.
Rating:
Summary: Distorted Agenda
Review: Bradley has a bias that clearly shows in this book. Full of selected anecdotal illustrations. I have study much of the US history that he is portraying as things that taught the Japanese to be what they were. His biased flavor really comes through when you hear him read the book on audio as I am doing. The way he talks about western (and in particular American) Christian values shows that the author in his heart feels that Christian values are nothing more than hypocrisy. He states that ALL THE FACES ON MOUNT RUSHMORE are of men who were racists, who hated the Indians. Excuse me! Abraham Lincoln a racist?! I don't think so. He attempts to show that Americans raping, killing, pillaging and burning during wartime were examples (causes) for the Japanese to become the evil empire that they became. By his selection of the minority and ignoring of the majority, one can easily be duped into believing this if this book were the only thing someone read. The reality is that there is too much out there that proves his examples to be the 10% of minority incidents that always occurs in wartime. Having been an officer in the military (navy), I can say that the US Military never in history condoned as a matter of policy the things Bradley is attempting to describe as normal behavior. In fact, violations of military law were dealt with more harshly back then than now. Such things were rare. In contrast, the Japanese government, with its roots in the brutal Shogun warrior, did condone their behavior. Finally, Bradley attempts to portray Japanese Imperialism as a self-defense response to the world. That is an argument that all aggressive nations throughout history have used. Hitler took over Czechoslovakia in self-defense of the ethnic Germans in the country. However, history shows that he created the crisis that he defended. Bradley ignores a principle reason for Japanese Imperialism. When Japan learned of the things the western culture had, they lusted after them. It lusted to become a dominant nation. Having been in Japan twice in the last decade, I can say beyond a doubt that the Japanese people still love the materialistic things of the west and despise the cultures that made those things possible.
Rating:
Summary: Important account that should be read
Review: . Flyboys is an excellent book that contains an
important account that should be read. This book and its author was brought to my attention
by a friend who heard of such on a TV show. A rare discovery. At the close of the 2003, Flyboys enjoys an Amazon
sales rank of 108 out of the hundreds of thousands, if
not millions, of the books that are for sale on Amazon. Much of the Japanese behavior in WWII is inexcusable. The book addresses the dangers of extreme nationalism
and the danger it can lead too. The genesis of Flyboys is about secret trials regarding
events hidden on Chichi Jima, not far from Iwo Jima,
during WWII. A number of Japanese officers on Chichi Jima are cannibals,
and their favorite cuisine were American prisoner of war
captives. The secret trials, held on Guam, doesn't make a lot
of sense unless taken into the broader context of WWII. George Bush, the 41st President of the United States, almost
ended up on their dinner table. The Pacific has a history of atrocities that propagate further
atrocities. The cycle of atrocities continues. It shouldn't be a surprise that Americans were involved in
various atrocities in the Pacific region. To say otherwise
is to lie when it is unnecessary. That is history. To call Japan's radical WWII military leadership "Spirit
Warriors" is justifiable, as they forgot lessons learned in
the previous war with Russia and they over-emphasized
the spirit in a modern industrial technological war. The false Bushido code practiced in Japan during WWII
carries a warning for many other societies now drunk with
power. The book Flyboys 0316105848 deserves to be read more
than once. Other books that should be read along with Flyboys are:
Downfall 0141001461 and Flags of Our Fathers 0553111337. .
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